According to recent research, 15% of Australians are unhappy with the amount of time spent commuting to work, while 40% of us would consider relocating to a country or coastal town.

NBN Co predicts 600 Australian ‘Lifestyle towns’ are on the brink of a population boom as faster internet connectivity allows people to work from home, outside of the nation’s capitals.

Leading demographer Bernard Salt predicts the 4% of Australians that work from home will double to 8% in the next decade reaching an estimated 1 million. His findings were released in a report commissioned by the NBN.

What Salt has dubbed as an ‘e-change’ is the relocation of work-force from a CBD or surrounding suburb to a super-connected country town on the fringe of a capital city.

“This is the idea of forsaking the city and the suburban commute and moving to a lifestyle town and maintaining your job by telecommuting,” he said.

“Not always possible in the pre-NBN network-rollout world. More easily achieved in a post-broadband-rollout world.

“I predict a cultural shift or ‘e-change movement’ which could see the rise of new silicon suburbs or beaches in regional hubs as universal access to fast broadband drives a culture of entrepreneurialism and innovation outside our capital cities.”

Lifestyle towns are characterised by affordability, atmosphere and distance to the nearest CBD, usually between 30km and 150km.

Salt believes the migration will be noticeable as early as 2020, once the NBN rollout is completed.

The 600 towns which fit NBN's e-change criteria include Kiama on the New South Wales south coast, Cairns in North Queensland and South Australia’s Victor Harbour.